Calling
by WolfOfHearts
Summary: The smoke dog leads Hayley to a building in the desert. Something else entirely leads her into the building's dark. (This is the sorry result of attempting to fight writer's block. Finished because idk writing practice.)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hayley centric fanfic, holy crap. It's gonna be quite short, but will (hopefully) spur more events in WTC. As you can tell, this takes place in the same universe. Enjoy.**

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The purple smoke dog is on Hayley's porch.

She kicks open the screen door as she throws on a coat, staring at the canine with a slackened jaw. She pulls her coat closer to her body, gripping it to its edges. It swishes its tail as she steps towards it- it is vibrant against the gray morning. "Hey there, pup," Hayley says, although this is no pup she's addressing. The dog looks up at her, grins, twitches its ears. "Why'd you come all the way into the housing district?" It just blinks and barks.

"Is something the matter?" she asks and the dog barks again with a toss of its head. "No? Then what's up?" It steps down the porch stairs for a moment but then turns back to her, and Hayley understands. "Could you have chosen a worse time, dog? I mean, really." she grumbles under her breath as she follows it down into the front yard. The wind howls around Hayley and she shivers. "The sun should have been up a while ago," she comments, and the dog looks back at her sharply.

It leads her across the wet grass, across the street, down the road. She'd forgot to put shoes on; every step on the asphalt makes her wince in pain. The dog does not slow down for her. Hayley staggers after it, cursing a little. It follows the street until it suddenly diverges into the desert sand. It stops when Hayley comes up to the sand after it. "Where are we going?" she asks, and it looks out towards the red light blinking on the mountain- and then to left to it. Hayley narrows her eyes and matches the dog's gaze. There is something there on the desert horizon next to the mountain. A low building of some sort.

The dog nudges her side and starts into the sand. Hayley hesitates, just for a second, and then follows it.

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Hayley leans against the wall of the low building, panting as she wipes her brow. The sun, late as it was in arriving, is here now, and is not merciful in its blazing heat. She looks over at the dog- it's found a friend, a golden smoke dog of what she assumes must be similar origins. It seems to feel her gaze on it, because it turns and brings its companion with it as it comes over. Gold Dog looks at her once, barks, and then dashes away around the side of the building. Purple Dog gets Hayley onto her feet and they follow the footsteps the other left.

They lead to a slightly ajar door, open enough that a young girl and two dogs might be able to get through. Hayley pushes her way inside, Purple Dog on her heels. The inside of the building is all the same from here: hallways, branching off in every direction. One extends in front of her, the largest of them all. Gold Dog is already half way down it, and barks when it sees they've arrived. Hayley hurries down the hall and takes the lead, the dogs walking on either side of her.

For what seems a while, they just explore the strange hallways, finding nothing but empty rooms at the end of some, finding locked doors at others, finding the wall at others still. Then Hayley finds the staircase. It winds down into darkness, hidden in the corner of one of the smaller empty rooms. The metal is rusty and the stairs are quite ancient themselves, but Hayley descend them. "Come on, pups." she says shakily. The dogs follow one by one behind her at her whisper.

She reaches the bottom and steps into a large room. Unlike the other smaller rooms, this one is not empty. The dogs begin to bark as she looks around, and don't follow her. "What is this?" she breathes, voice laced with awe and disgust. "This wasn't humane, whatever this was."

There are skeletons laying against the walls, ragged clothes still clinging to the bleached bones. Dried blood stains the cement of the room, and there are bullet holes embedded in the walls; she digs into one and pulls out a still intact bullet. It rolls around soundlessly in her palm. Somewhere, a fan clicks in monotone, a false heartbeat. Hayley slowly walks down the center of the room, shivering slightly as something wet drips onto her head. She hears a creak on the stairs, and jumps around to look at them, gasp echoing her ears. The dogs have disappeared. So have the stairs.

Something -or perhaps someone?- wants her to see something, wants her to understand what's happened here, Hayley realizes.

And so she goes deeper into shadows to do as the something/one wishes.

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**A/N: I don't even know guys. Writer's block is kicking in. Thanks for reading this drivel.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: INCONSISTENT VOICE YAY THIS IS DUMB AND AND A GR9 EXAMPLE OF MY CRAPPY WRITER'S BLOCK WRITING. ENJOY IF YOU CAN. **

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The shadows end at another wall, and another door. This door is smaller then any other Hayley has seen so far, and she hesitates again. Then she opens the door with a creak and ducks through the doorway. She straightens up and glances around, nibbling on her finger nails apprehensively. This room is slightly smaller then the one she has just left, but it's still large. Still has shadows at its back.

Inside this room are six pool tables, three on each side of the room. A single pool ball rests in the faded green centers- eight balls, painted messy gold and emblazoned with a triangle where the eight should have been. The walls are smeared with a dark, slightly squishy liquid; when Hayley pulls her hand away from the substance, her fingers pull a little with them. There are no skeletons in this room, but for a moment, in the corner of her eyes, a pair of red dots fade in from the shadows and then fade out. She shivers as she begins to walk again. The pool balls suddenly begin to shake as she passes them, and she shrieks, scrambling away. They stop when she leaves their midst. Hayley swallows and walks forward again, trying to ignore the shaking on the tables and the louder click of the fan.

The path leads her to the back wall, where a small door -only the size of her head- is installed. It is slightly ajar, and a faint ticking noise emits from its depths. This wall has no strange liquid on it. She stares at the compartment with a expressionless face. The ticking seems to go in time with the fan; tick, whir, tick, whir. Hayley takes a breath, and with a yell and shaking hand throws open the little door. There is a mass of something made out of the same liquid that coated the three other walls. It's the same size as a small softball. The ticking sounds from the interior of the black, squirming mass. Hayley takes another breath, and picks up the thing. It is like consistent jelly in her hands, and she grits her teeth in disgust as she roots around inside of it with groping fingers. Her fingers latch onto something solid, something circular. She rips it from the squirming mass and tosses the remaining intact thing back into its container. Then she inspects the item she's recovered.

It's a sealed box. Hayley wipes away the remaining grime on its surface with her shirt, and it reveals itself to be made of a semitransparent material. Nestled inside is a beating heart -a real human heart, she realizes- that's ticking. She presses an ear against the box to make sure she's hearing right. Yes, it's this heart is ticking. Hayley licks her suddenly dry lips as she pockets the 's never seen anything like this. Nothing.

A thunderous and repetitive thumping sounds above her and she looks up, startled. She hadn't noticed before, but there are glass panels in the ceiling. She feels a smile play in her lips as she recognizes the faces looking down at her: the smoke dogs. Purple Dog paws at the glass and barks soundlessly. Gold Dog just presses its nose against the glass and pants. With a snarl on its face, Purple Dog lets itself slowly sink through the glass and land in the ground below. Gold Dog watches it descend motionless. Purple Dog looks at the halfway concealed heart-in-the-box in Hayley's pocket and snarls softly.

It gently wrestles the box out of her pocket and carries it in its mouth as it walks over to the darkest corner of the room. There is a soft, almost inaudible click. Something inside the wall crumbles and dies. Sunlight and sand floods the corner as it self destructs, leaving behind a climbable but high incline. Purple Dog scrambles up it and Hayley follows. She looks back with a gasp as something rolls against her foot. One of the eight balls. She picks it up slowly, swearing she sees another pair of eyes looking back at her from the darkness of the building she's left behind. There is a note taped to the ball, one that had never been there before.

_Beware the smiling gods, _it says in messy, panicked scrawl._ Beware the friendly dogs._ _Beware. Be ware. Be a ware. Be aware. Beaware_. _You have been warned. _Hayley blinks and shakes her head, pockets the ball, and climbs the rest of the steep embankment to lay on the warm and forgiving sand next to Purple Dog's watchful form.

Somewhere, deep in the building, the false heartbeat of the fan creaks to a stop.

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**A/N: lookit me im trying to be dark and edgy am i cool yet? *cries because writing is hard***


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